Album Review: Joy Next Door by The Maine
Written by: Brittany Davis
After nearly twenty years as a band, The Maine is back with their tenth studio album Joy Next Door offering a bright and refreshing sound to add to the iconic catalog. The band is known for constantly changing elements sonically while also holding true to their alternative pop rock roots. Joy Next Door listeners can hear callbacks to their albums Pioneer, American Candy, and You Are Ok.
Green opens the record with soft acoustic guitar strums, and frontman John O'Callaghan’s isolated vocals eventually gave into the slow burn of crispy drums while the bass guides the song behind it. The power ballad’s line, “Maybe this is what it feels like to fall,” gives fans a soft example of what the album has in store.
Picking up momentum sonically, Half A Spark has instruments punching the song loud and clear. This is a tune to which one can easily dance or drive around with sunglasses on and the windows down. The feeling of longing for those free, childlike moments runs through Half A Spark—the fond memories of going on joyrides while high on youth. This track might be the perfect song to add to a summer playlist.
Palms opens up with soft bubblegum pop moments with lots of harmonies, synth, steady guitar, and drum leads. Palms is a gentle reminder that people themselves are the ones who choose what they want in their lives, and they have to want it enough to put forth the effort. The Maine says, “you don’t need no crystal ball, go anywhere you wanna go” and “don’t think it all happens for a reason, fuck that. Well, the night is unknown… don’t think, let it happen.”
The album’s title track opens softly while beautifully leading up to a higher tempo. O'Callaghan sings, “She was never here at all. She used to live next door. The sun is in the sky and I wonder if she’s home I guess we’ll never know." While joy can be found in a person, it can also be in the simple things like notes, flowers, and the energy that surrounds them.
Quiet Part Loud follows that lead of having a special person and not always noticing it. Even when one gets wrapped up in life’s happenings, focusing on the moments together are so vital for a relationship, like appreciation of a single look in the present moment: “your eyes are like a sound, I can hear it now.” This song is very steady with the drums leading into a fast-paced rhythm and the guitar softly guiding between harmonies in the background. Some piano can be heard with the bass, and it all eventually leads to a high-volume moment.
Die To Fall is an explosive track with the synth, guitar, drums, and bass standing out in different parts of the song. Lyrically, it covers the feeling one gets when they look at the person they love. Everything around them is moving a million miles per hour, but their subject is soft and stagnant while making them feel absolutely alive.
This album has elements of innovative moments, but the most experimental track that stands out is A Brief Commercial Break opening with a soft acoustic guitar having O'Callaghan’s voice sounding a little distorted, but still so clear. This song is quite repetitive with the message “I was young, now I’m not. I was sad, now I’m not. Thanks a lot.” The background of each line also had another message: “Mortified you’d leave me like that, after a message from our friends over at the pretty okay club.” While short in length, the song can be impactful to those who often compare their emotions from what they felt in the past to now.
It’s Not Over Yet is about taking the leap into the unknown with it always working out somehow, with one of the lines, “All of these strangers start to feel like friends and this feels like a movie.” The Maine is known for their interactive relationship with their fan base, so this feels like an open love letter to the fans of 8123—a community based on the parking garage location where the band used to hang out when they were younger. They sing, “Maybe fear can be a good thing. If you're not scared, you’re not alive. Well, the most amazing things can happen when we’re mostly terrified."
Closing out the album is And Then, a soft and twinkly love ballad that continues where the opening song left off with the lyrics, “Maybe this is what it feels like to fall for her.”
Joy Next Door is a beautiful concept album expressing many emotions of adulthood: ones’ greatest love, fear of the future, looking within for guidance, reflecting on your accomplishments, and acceptance that things fall into place how they do. The Maine also teaches listeners to find their own moments of joy with smaller and simpler things that surround them. This band understands that much of their fanbase has grown up with them and this album delivers that realization of growth and delight.
For fans of: Beach Weather, Valley, The Band Camino, Knox, and Wallows.
